1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic electronic component. In particular, the present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic electronic component including a ceramic base body including inner electrodes buried therein, and outer electrodes disposed on opposite end surfaces of the ceramic base body and electrically connected to the inner electrodes. Examples of such a multilayer ceramic electronic component include multilayer ceramic capacitors, multilayer ceramic inductors, multilayer ceramic thermistors, and multilayer ceramic piezoelectric components.
2. Description of the Related Art
An example of a known multilayer ceramic electronic component is one that includes a ceramic base body having inner electrodes buried therein which are partly exposed on surfaces of the ceramic base body, and outer electrodes which are disposed on the opposite end surfaces of the ceramic base body and each of which includes a sintered electrode layer containing a metal as a main component, a conductive resin electrode layer containing metal particles and disposed on the surface of the sintered electrode layer, and a plating layer disposed on the surface of the conductive resin electrode layer. Such a multilayer ceramic electronic component is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 10-284343. This multilayer ceramic electronic component has the conductive resin electrode layer disposed between the sintered electrode layer and the plating layer. Therefore, the following drawbacks are overcome to some extent: the ceramic base body is susceptible to cracks due to the temperature cycle during use and has a low resistance against deformation of a substrate on which it is mounted.
A multilayer ceramic electronic component such as that described above is structured such that the outer electrodes are disposed on the opposite end surfaces of the ceramic base body. For mounting of the multilayer ceramic electronic component onto a substrate, each of these outer electrodes extends over the edges of the end surface to wrap around adjacent main surfaces. However, the interface between the main surface of the ceramic base body and the edge portion of the outer electrode is susceptible to moisture ingress, and this moisture enters the conductive resin layer.
Such a multilayer ceramic electronic component is soldered to a substrate by reflow. During the reflow process, the moisture in the conductive resin layer may turn into steam and cause splashing of solder. This problematic phenomenon is called “solder splatter”.